


Hero of the Story

by syredronning



Category: Star Trek (2009)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-09-08
Updated: 2010-09-08
Packaged: 2017-10-11 14:40:04
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,986
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/113526
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/syredronning/pseuds/syredronning
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A miracle coming true - somehow.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Hero of the Story

**Author's Note:**

> Many thanks to cupidandpsycho for the beta. This story was partly inspired by the wonderful songvid of the same name by theoreticalpixy.

_They say that your life will play out in front of your eyes in the moment you die._

Christopher Pike can't really confirm that because it's more like a random collection of scenes that spring to his mind, important and unimportant in a wild mix.

Alright, maybe many of them have to do with Jim Kirk, but before he can figure it out any further, the movie ends.

* * *

It's the fifth anniversary of the Kelvin disaster and Christopher Pike attends because he's on Earth, his captain's insignia still fresh enough to make him the current poster boy for the publicity shots. Later he's drifting through the gathered crowd, trying not to step on any toes or fall over the various children running around.

Only by chance he ends up at a table opposite to a young boy with curled, blond hair bent over a piece of paper with two crayons in his hand.

"Hello, sir," the boy says and looks up from his drawing. He's got the bluest eyes Christopher has ever seen on a human.

"Hello, son." Christopher angles his head to look at the picture. There's a lot of black and red, and it takes some imagination to venture a guess. "A dragon?"

"Yes," the boy replies, moving the paper a little over to him.

"Nice. Why are you drawing this?"

"It's a space dragon," the boy says with a frown, clearly thinking the adult is a little dumb. "Mom says that's what it looked like. Large and black and fire coming out of his mouth." Bowing the blond head, the boy examines his own drawing for a moment.

"That's what she says. But I know it's a lie. Spaceships don't look like dragons."

"Some do," Christopher says as he suddenly understands. Most high-quality material had gone down with the _Kelvin_ but like anyone else he's seen recreated images of the enemy ship with arms like a spiked sepia, large enough to fill the sky. He wonders where the boy's mother had been in all of this.

"She said Dad killed the dragon. Knight George. But the knight was supposed to live, wasn't he?" the boy asks him seriously and the captain doesn't know how to reply.

"Jim, come here," a voice says from behind him, and the boy slips from the stool, paper and crayons tightly in his grip. Christopher turns to see a woman with another boy in tow. He only knows her from photographs; she usually keeps away from these memorial ceremonies.

"Got to go," the boy says and jerks him a nod. He's almost passed the seated man when he turns his head once more. "And I'm not your son."

"No, you're not," Christopher agrees, and watches Winona Kirk leading away her children.

Three years later, he writes his dissertation about command decisions with a focus on the _Kelvin_.

* 

Christopher never understood why it had to be Iowa. It's empty and dusty and probably had been chosen because disasters like the first matter-antimatter implosion that ripped a deep, long canyon into the vastness barely caused a blink from the few people living here.

On the other hand, he has to admit that the shipyards that appear on the horizon like giants half-hidden in the morning fog are a damn impressive sight.

One day, he'd come here for his own, new ship. It might take another ten years, but he could wait. Then he'd be the one to check the plans and make the outfit decisions - and to fight with the budget commission, but he's not thinking of these shitty aspects when he can think of his shining ship instead.

In a sudden decision, Christopher pulls the car aside to check his PADD. He's got a little spare time, and he knows where Winona Kirk lives. He's never spoken to her; she didn't want to get interviewed, only wrote him a message that she's got nothing more to say and that she hadn't been on the bridge anyway. She never attended another ceremony in San Francisco either.

If he drove to her farm… would he be crossing a line?

He drives there anyway, curious what has become of the boy who's ten by now. When he stops in front of a rather run-down farm house, a man walks out, middle-aged, badly shaven, the work clothes ragged.

"This is private property," the man calls aggressively, waving a small phaser at him.

Christopher gets out of the car, somewhat amused because nobody had pointed a weapon at him for the last six months in space. Seems Earth is a lot more dangerous after all. "I came to visit the Kirk family."

"There're no Kirks living here," the man says sharply.

"I thought I'd find Winona Kirk and her two sons here."

"You've come to the wrong place. There aren't any Kirks," the man repeats. "Get off my property or I'll shoot you."

Christopher knows the man's lying, but leaves without resistance.

He's not surprised when he sees two lanky boys as he draws into the next small town. They're dressed in cheap clothes, walking next to each other with heavy school bags, hair long enough to hang into their eyes.

He turns and pulls to the side next to them, lowering the window. "Hey." They stare at him with startled frowns on their faces. "Are you Sam and Jim Kirk?"

The older boy tightly presses his lips together; the younger gnaws on his bottom lip.

"I'm Christopher Pike from Starfleet. I only want to talk to you. Can I invite you to a cup of ice cream?"

The older boy shakes his head. "No, thanks," he says roughly and takes his brother's arm to pull him away from the car.

"I was the man you showed the space dragon to, Jim," Christopher says, addressing the younger boy. "You remember? At the Kelvin memorial ceremony five years ago?" It's been a long time but he sees a flicker of recognition in the bright blue eyes. "I've written my dissertation on the _Kelvin_ – your parents' ship. I'd really like to talk to the two of you."

"There are no space dragons," the younger boy states, something indefinable in his eyes. "And there are no Kirks left," he adds with a glance at his older brother. "Leave us alone."

Concerned, Christopher watches the boys hurry away. For a second he ponders to go after them, but then he notices several people staring at him. He quickly drives away into the other direction before anyone could call the cops and he'd be left to explain that he's not a pedo targeting the local school kids.

In the evening, Christopher places an on-line order for the least kitschy figurine of Saint George he can find and sends it to the farm, a note for Jim with it: "_Some say the dragon is the darkness within us. Whatever it is, it's always worth fighting it. ~ Captain Christopher Pike._"

For a while, he keeps thinking of the Kirk kids, even goes as far as checking their current circumstances to find Winona's status as "married" to a man named Frank Burns. But then he's up in space again, his mind full of other, more urgent problems.

* 

  
The next time Christopher sees the boy – no, _man_ – he's lying in an impossible angle over a table, the once sweet face battered and not just from the fight tonight.

_Damn_ if he doesn't wish he'd done something more in the past, but he'd always figured that anyone named Kirk would make it through life on his own accounts. That the kid might end as the local bar brawler and a high-potential juvenile offender hadn't been a part of the equation.

The captain dares him and wins, and then has to live with that victory through three at times agonizing years as Jim's academic advisor, because he won't entrust the kid into anyone else's care.

To anyone that asks him, Christopher denies to suddenly having acquired a helper's syndrome, but truth is that he feels he needs to fix _something_ that's gone astray partly due to his own failure. And that something is more than just some birthdays without Winona.

There's a runaway brother and little bits and pieces from old hospital reports, and most of all the missing parts of the story that finally make him write it down, black on white, in Jim's locked file - _corporal and psychological abuse by the stepfather (Cinderella effect)_. He wouldn't be surprised if there'd been something even worse, but he never finds that out.

The rare times Pike manages to break through the young man's bravado façade, there are always two burning questions behind blue eyes, _Why do you do that for me? _ and _Am I worth it?_

Christopher Pike makes sure that after those three years, these questions are answered.

* * *

  
"How is he?" Jim Kirk asks in a whisper, as if his voice could cause any more damage than there already is. The attending doctor gives him a wrap-up, clinically cool and distant, and Jim wishes he had Bones here because even if Bones had said the same things there would have been that underlying current of concern and _I know how you feel_ and _I'm really sorry, Jim_.

And maybe he would have added some words of hope, even if it looks still hopeless, the large words _irrevocable radiation damage_ and _coma_ forming the unbridgeable gap between his wishes and reality.

As if Jim doesn't know all of that already, considering that Chris has been in this state for the last three years. When the doctor is gone, he leans over and places a kiss on cool, unresponsive lips, like every time he visits. Maybe he's a little crazy, but he's seen more things between Heaven and Earth by now, and his kisses have a reputation.

Much as the last six times though, they're not enough, and with a sigh Jim sits down for a lonesome vigil.

* 

  
The first time Jim Kirk meets Christopher Pike is actually the third time, the other two encounters almost forgotten in the past, behind the _before Sam left_ divider. But he remembers the unnamed officer and the arrival of _Knight George the Dragon Slayer_ at the farm, because Frank hadn't dealt with it well, the accompanying note torn before Jim had been able to read the sender's name.

Jim had paid in blood and then taken the statue up to his tiny room. He doesn't get that line about the darkness within for a long time.

Maybe he only understands when the black ship of his nightmares fills the screen with debris all around it, and a tattooed face on the screen asks for an ultimate sacrifice from the man who's become so much more than a simple advisor to him.

"You can't do that," Jim snaps, but all emotions are gone from Pike's face as they hurry down the corridor, the man delivering clipped orders as if these aren't possibly his last moments alive.

"What about you?" Jim asks, and Pike replies with a sturdy "Guess you'll have to come and get me," not believing it for a second.

Jim thinks of the man George Kirk might have been and the son he'd wanted to have, and knows that it's both of them or none.

* 

  
It's after the rescue, the surgery, and the news that Pike would surely make it, though maybe not right back onto his own two feet, that McCoy wrestles Jim into taking a break at the captain's bedside. He doesn't actually want to stay, much less fall asleep, but then he gets woken up from a hand that weakly strokes through his hair, his face half-buried in the captain's blanket.

Jim sits upright with a start. "Sir –" He flushes a little as Pike's dazed eyes meet his.

"You were right," Pike whispers.

"About what?"

"It looked like a dragon. A terribly large dragon. Never felt that small before…"

Jim captures Pike's hand, his chest tight. He's never seen Pike so human and fragile. He couldn't remember the drawing, only knows the story, and he can't stop being irritated that Pike's obviously favorite memory of him is that one _fucking childish drawing_.

"I kept waiting for him to show, but I guess that would've been too much of a miracle," Pike adds barely audible before he's out cold again, leaving Jim eternally wondering if he'd referred to George.

The next day, Pike is mostly back to his sharp, sarcastic command self, but beneath the orders and actions, Jim can feels the change, like a tectonic shift that unsettled everything inside the man.

* 

  
It's five hours till planet fall, and they sit in a quiet observation lounge, a perfect view over Earth and a bottle of whiskey between them. It had been Pike's wish, and it sounds so much like a last wish that Jim can't say _no_. Besides, McCoy and Spock conspired to get them this half an hour of privacy.

"I always wondered if it would happen to me," Pike says thoughtfully, "that one turning point where you face that one, big challenge and the future of the whole damn universe rests on your shoulders. And lo and behold, it happened and I failed spectacularly."

"It wasn't your fault," Jim says reasonably. "You didn't have a chance against the slug. It's biology."

"I'll tell you a secret, _Acting Captain_," Pike states sardonically, leaning back in the wheelchair. "Nobody cares for reasons. Nobody cares for excuses. It's only the result that counts. And I failed." He claims the bottle and takes a large gulp. "Earth is still here because you didn't. You'll get a medal because you deserve it. I'll get it as compensation."

Three weeks later, true to Pike's words, Jim Kirk receives a medal and relieves him as captain of the _Enterprise_. He doesn't know what drug is swimming in Pike's blood but it has to be a good one, considering that insanely happy smile - as if giving away his cherished ship is Pike's greatest wish in life.

* 

  
They do _it_ only once, and not until the day when the news about a last battle in the Laurentian system makes the headlines, featuring pictures of the _Yorktown_ and a dark-haired female captain with intense eyes, embedded in words of condolence. A woman Jim Kirk had never met in person, but he didn't need that in order to know what she and everyone else had meant to a certain admiral. After all, his eyes had strayed to the framed shot of the old bridge crew during every meeting in Pike's office. He's been intrigued by the faces and postures, hoping his future bridge team would look just as impressive one day.

Pike doesn't answer his calls, and in the end, Jim breaks into the apartment. He finds him on the balcony, half on the ground with one hand still on the rail behind which there's a thirty-level abyss of free fall. The protective fence wouldn't have been enough to hold back an able man, but it's enough to hold back the still recovering admiral. For all that Jim's glad about the fact _per se_, he also feels strangely insulted on behalf of his commanding officer.

"I fucking didn't come to get you only to have you throw it away," Jim snaps at Pike as he pulls him up from the ground, because there's never been one word of pity between them no matter how much they may have felt it at times.

"Maybe I didn't ask to be rescued," Pike whispers and closes his eyes, not fast enough to hide the tears. His forehead sags against Jim's shoulder.

"Everyone needs to be saved sometimes."

"What for, Jim? What for?"

"For everything we've got left. For our lives. Our future." Pike's face feels hot and flushed against his, and without thinking Jim starts kissing away the wetness, following the trail of new wrinkles, lacing his hand in graying hair.

When their lips meet, Pike doesn't fight.

There's nothing like _right_ or _wrong_ in Jim's mind – these are flexible categories, prone to be defined by the ruling morals and religions. He likes to think in terms of _effective_ and _not effective_, or maybe _harmful_ or _helpful_. And so he's got no qualm to show the other man just how much he needs him, wants him live.

"I've never been your white knight," Pike says that night, his voice a little broken around the edges.

"I never asked you to be," Jim replies, which is half truth, half lie. He may never have asked but Pike had had that effect anyway, as surely as if he'd come high on a horse and battled Jim's demons all by himself.

"You owe me your life," Jim adds in a whisper, his lips grazing over the vulnerable pulse point on the other man's throat. "Prove to me that it's been worth saving you." Because an open debt is like a weapon against a Starfleet officer like Pike, who's built a life on commitment to a cause, and Jim's not beyond bringing out the big guns.

But Jim doesn't say all the other things that would spell out the feelings he has for Christopher Pike. The love and adoration for everything the man is to him, but also the small edge of anger and resentment for everything the man isn't or wasn't, colored by the memories of the boy who left with his brother and then wished for years that the Starfleet officer in the car would return and save him from his life of misery.

It would be too much, too deep, and so he doesn't say any of the words that are stuck in his throat, at last swallowing them down with the spurts that hit the bottom of his mouth.

The next day, Jim's got to leave early for the _Enterprise_, so they only manage a coffee in the kitchen together. The silence is too deep to be called comfortable, but at least they can still look into each others' eyes.

"Promise me you won't try anything stupid again," Jim says when he's at the door. "Promise me, Chris."

Pike nods, his "_I won't, Jim. I promise_" slightly tainted by the sad smile that doesn't reach his eyes and the way he's tiredly resting against the door frame to keep upright. The promise is sincere, though, and even if it's going to be an uphill battle, Jim is sure that Pike will make it. Their hands lace in good-bye, the touch a placeholder for all the touches they don't dare at daylight, as if that would make the sudden magic go away, the new ground where they are eye-to-eye and _even_, with unspoken possibilities ahead.

When Jim leaves, he doesn't know that it's the last time he'll talk to him in person because Admiral Pike has got to play the goddamn hero again and throw himself between his cadets and a rupturing baffle plate.

It's as if the fates had planned to get Pike for once and all.

* 

  
The hand Jim holds remains cool and unresponsive, no matter how long he waits and hopes, and he's reaching the point where he accepts that he's got to tackle this head on. He's never been one to avoid unpleasant decisions, so he's not going to start now. Not when it's about the fate of the man who's always believed in him, more than anyone else (except for Bones, maybe).

"You told me you called me _son_ once," Jim whispers with his eyes on Pike's lifeless face, all muscles slack in his comatose state. "And I replied that I'm not your son. You adhered to my wish, never once addressed me like that again. Today I really wish you had. Because it would've been okay, coming from you. Only from you." He keeps pausing because a part of him always waits and listens, and that part wouldn't give up hope until the moment when this would really, truly be over.

His eyes drift to the book on the night stand, old-fashioned, yellowing paper carrying the words of the greatest poet in Earth history, and only too fitting.

_To die, to sleep  
No more – and by a sleep to say we end  
The heartache and the thousand natural shocks  
That flesh is heir to_

Jim goes to make a call.

* * *

"You want to do what?" McCoy almost shouts over the comm channel. "You can't do that, Jim. You can't just…"

"What? Keep him from vegetating in intensive care?" Jim looks pale and worn out, but his jaw is firmly set in an expression McCoy knows from a hundred command decisions.

"You never know what the future might bring."

"You're hoping for a miracle?" Jim laughs roughly. "I thought you were the one who always told me that life isn't a fairytale. I'm his last personal contact. The doctors have shown me the data, and damn if I haven't learned to interpret them over reading all your reports. Tell me, Bones – is there any chance for a miracle cure? Because unless you come up with something soon, I'm going to end this." Jim squeezes his eyes shut. "After the _Narada_, Chris and I talked about it. He never wanted to end up here like this. He's been a man of action. Being stuck in a body like this, with no chance to ever recover, is his personal definition of hell. And you know that."

"Jim…" There are so many things on McCoy's lips, the large looming secret of his own past raising its ugly head. He'd never told Jim how he'd helped his own father to die, and can't bring himself to do so even now. Just because his decision had been wrong doesn't mean Jim's decision wouldn't be right, and he couldn't shoulder the knowledge that he might unduly influence Jim in one of the most important decisions of his life.

Besides, Jim hadn't really asked for his opinion.

"If you hate me for this…." Jim's voice breaks over the comm.

McCoy shakes his head. "Fuck, no, Jim. We all do what we think is best. I just wish…" He runs a coiled fist over his lips, because he knows there's no good choice in this; the truest of all no-win situations.

"Do what you've got to do. I'll be here, waiting for you." McCoy touches the screen with his hand. "I'll always wait for you. You know that, right?"

Jim nods. "Yeah. Thanks for that, Bones. You're the best."

_No, I'm not_, McCoy thinks. If he were, he wouldn't leave Jim alone in this.

"Love you, Jim," he whispers, but the channel is already closed and the words linger like forgotten soldiers in a battle, glad to be out of sight behind the cover for as long as the fires rage on.

* * *

_It's deep in the night, another reception almost over. Pike sits on the balcony of the main ball room, a little drunk but not too drunk to talk with McCoy about this and that before they both fall into a sudden silence. _

After a moment, Pike runs his fingers over his new Admiral stripes with just the tiniest of sighs.

"Tell you something, McCoy. Starfleet might blather on about what a hero I am, but there's only one hero in this story, and his name is Kirk."

McCoy tries to find a good answer but knows that Pike is right. Through the glass of the large balcony doors, their gazes come to rest on the smiling, charming figure of Captain James T. Kirk, at last out of cadet red and in his proper golden shirt - Starfleet's youngest captain ever.

Cinderella really made it out of the ashes.

"Let's have another drink," Pike says and gets up with shaky legs, on his lips a shadow of that sarcastic, self-ironic smile McCoy would always remember him for. "To miracles come true."


End file.
